


Sherun, or, an Adventurer’s Life

by Gazyrlezon



Category: LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works, Original Work
Genre: Deconstruction, Fantasy, Gen, Lovecraftian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 20:33:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7237423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gazyrlezon/pseuds/Gazyrlezon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
Eerie lights danced beyond the mountains at the end of the plain, where Sherun new his goal to be. All he had to do now was to reach them, and be free. The unnaturally swollen trees around him had long since stopped, had been replaced by a vast area of soil so grey it was almost black, with the air shimmering above it where the ground was still burning </p>
<hr/>
<p>This being the story of Sherun’s life, from his dreams as a young boy to his final moments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sherun, or, an Adventurer’s Life

**Author's Note:**

> This work is set in Âlendia, a fantasy world created by a collective effort (see http://www.alendia.com/, in German).
> 
> Since I’m used to writing in English (and I’m using the world rather freely here) I’m posting this here.
> 
> The basic idea of this world is that of a fantasy world that was only introduced to magic after the smallest of its three moons fell from the sky, and in the years afterwards (were the stories are set), people experiment with it and try to get used to the change their world has gone through.
> 
> If I find the time, I might translate this piece and post it there, too.

Eerie lights danced beyond the mountains at the end of the plain, where Sherun new his goal to be. All he had to do now was to reach them, and be free. The unnaturally swollen trees around him had long since stopped, had been replaced by a vast area of soil so grey it was almost black, with the air shimmering above it where the ground was still burning 

Sherun was not surprised. This was were he had yearned to go ever since that fateful night were all of Âlendia had seen the smallest of the three moons falling down. 

And while others spun tales around that night, and the horrors and revelations that had come with it, he’d begun to make his way to its heart. Adventures, that had always been for what he was made, no matter what other men might say. Those others who could not even bear to leave their village out of sight he could only despise. 

When, now a long time past, long before the falling of the third moon, a boy living in the most unremarkable of villages had announced that one day, he’d rise up to be as famous as Taborlin the Great, his reception, of course, had not been as friendly as he might have hoped. 

Where he’d hoped to find support and training in the nearby blacksmith, the only man he’d ever seen holding a sword, Sherun had learned what it was like to be mocked. Where he’d hoped to buy a horse from a nearby peasant, or even just a mule or a donkey, he had learned what it was like to be chased away. 

It had been worse with his mother. 

_Taborlin is just a story_ , his mother had said, _there are no men like him. It’s just something that’s nice listening to, but nothing real._

He had thought that unfair, and he still remembered the beginnings of tears starting to form. So he’d gone to his father, wild old soldier that he’d been, and told him of his dream. 

And his father, that old fat man who loved to boast of how he’d once been in the King’s service, and how he’d had captured and entire town on his own had thrown his head back an laughed, that exaggerated booming laughter he used when someone told him a joke that he didn’t think particularly funny but was determined not to show it. 

That had been the worst of all. 

Not long afterwards, when his twelfth year in this world had barely started, he decided to just _show_ them, stole the blacksmith’s sword, his father’s knife, and was on his way. 

_Adventure, here I come!_

If he hadn’t been crying, he’d have been amazed at how quickly things fell to pieces. 

The first day had been pleasant enough. He ate what he’d taken with him from home, and slept in the shadow of a tree beside the road. 

On the second day he was farther from home than ever before, and slowly, fear began to creep into his mind. What might his father be doing, just this very moment, back at home? Would he search for him? Probably. But he’d never dream of his small son actually going away, he’d thought it all a joke. What would the rest of the town think, the boys who’d mocked him? 

The third day, and he realized that he had now idea of where he was, or where he was going. That wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d actually known were his home was. It had a name, he remembered, yet why should anyone use it but strangers? For those living there, it was just the village. Most were only dimly aware of that name, and Sherun certainly didn’t know it. 

The fourth day was the first time he went to sleep hungry. 

All the way from the fifth to the eighth, he tried to catch himself something to eat. With the forest this tall and thick around him, he had not thought it would be this _hard_. Worse, he found he was clumsy with the sword, and while it was painful to carry the large thing on his back all the time, he wasn’t capable of holding it in one hand for more than half a second. Then, when he finally managed a rat, instead of the rabbit he was hoping for, he found that he’d no idea how to start a fire for cooking it. 

On the ninth day, he saw a bear, and for one moment thought that the beast had seen him, too, and felt he was more scared than he’d ever been before in his life. After that, he stopped counting the days. 

The moon must have turned several times before he was capable of feeding himself enough as to not be hungry. Well, at least not hungry all the time. He’d stopped using the sword for hunting, for while it offered greater range, it was just to heavy for his weak arms. The knife, however, had bend piece of wood as its handle, so it never flew straight when he tried to throw it. 

Still, he had more success with it. 

And then, when he just barely managed to survive and started to think about what he’d do next, the ground grew cold and hard, and game rarer. Winter was coming. 

Sherun had never considered the winter, or what he could do to avoid freezing. His old clothes had long since been reduced to rags, but he’d kept the skins of whatever he’d caught since he’d started to sleep on them. It was just enough to make himself a cloak. 

That was, if he had any string, or a needle to sew it all together. Of course, he had neither. The best thing he could do was use the fresh ones, still bloody from when he’d skinned them, and use the blood as a makeshift glue. Afterwards, his clothes reeked of death and corruption, but he thought he was a little warmer. 

Of course, that also meant that now he had to sleep on the hard, frozen ground. 

Beneath a particularly tall tree he found himself a little cave, nothing special, just a hole in the ground barely large enough for him, and thought about staying there, the way animals did during the winter, but found he froze all the same. And of course, while he was in the hole, he could not hunt, or find whatever fruits might still be growing. 

He also thought of his home, of course. But when he looked at himself, a boy of twelve in rags, with the skins of mice and rats and moles, everything held together with dried mud, he new that wouldn’t do. 

_They’d laugh at me even more, then. The would-be adventurer who did not even_ _have real clothes._

There was nothing to help it. He had to go leave the forest before it killed him. 

It took him days to even find just a road, and then even longer to follow it without starving. Still, he just barely managed it. 

And at the very last day of autumn, the vast city of Sunnagart, which held the duke’s own palace, could count a twelve-and-a-half-year-old, savage-looking, starving and freezing Sherun amongst its inhabitants. Or rather, amongst its beggars, the kind that lived on the street, the kind that everyone either pitied or despised, the kind that were responsible for its reputation as one giant hellhole, no matter what the duke might pretend. 

It was also the kind of city that is determined to show its inhabitants time and time again that everything can become worse than it already is, no matter how impossible that might seem at first. 

Sherun learned it on his first day there, within an hour of arriving. Afterwards, he was left bleeding, with both his sword and knife lost, as well as the few coins he possessed from home and had carried wit him all summer, laying on his face, while around him the snow started falling slow and soft, as if to mock his bleeding wounds. 

This was his first day there, in a little over three years he would stay. 

On the evening of the first day, he at least managed to find shelter, in one of the countless alleys that ran through the city. It didn’t have a roof, and every time someone tried to walk past him he was woken, no matter if they kicked him in the ribs or were afraid not to touch him at all, what with his rags and the dried blood from the animals’ skins. 

On the second day, he learned how painful a still-fresh, untreated wound can be, and spend the day lying in the same alley in the same agony as the night before. 

On the third day, when he was able to move again without fainting, he started to beg. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it would result in someone else coming by and stealing whatever the others had given him. He was incapable of defending himself, after all, and others were hungry, too. And while he hated them with a passion, he had to admit to himself that maybe he’d do the same 

By the fourth day he was starving, but found that when you knew were to look, you might find little inns and taverns that sold leftovers for a price even he could afford, with what little he had. 

On the fifth day he was agile enough to climb again, and found that he could walk through half the city without ever touching the ground. A little place near a chimney of one house, sheltered by the overhanging roof of another became his regular spot to sleep. 

After the sixth day, nothing much seemed to change anymore, and again he stopped counting. He ran away from older boys, and after another day spend bleeding in an alley, he learned to run away from girls, too. He begged in the streets, spend as little of it as he could afford and saved the rest in his little spot near the chimney, hoping that no one would ever find it there. When he could avoid it, he never touched the ground and preferred to stay above the gruesome streets. Should the opportunity present itself, he’d steal whatever was unguarded and caught his attention. If he could not use it, he’d still be able to sell it, but only for much less than what was worth, for who would want to make business of a child of the streets? 

And when he had nothing else to do, he’d crawl into his hiding-place and weep. 

Again and again, he thought of going home, but of course, he couldn’t. When he’d still been in the forest, he had only feared that they might laugh at him, but now he realized to his horror that he had not the faintest idea where his home might be. All he knew was which gate he’d entered the city through, and when he tried to find his way back, he was forced to stop at the first crossroads. On his way to the city, he’d always followed the larger road, and now he found that he’d no idea on how to go back. 

All he had was the city, and the never-dying wish to become as well-known a hero as those in the stories. 

So he turned his back to the forest, and started begging once more. 

To his shame, he started robbing other beggars, like he himself had been robbed when he’d first arrived. 

During summer, life became a bit easier, not because of the warmth, but because of the market days and the merchants passing through, and the ships at the harbour. Everything was messier than in winter, and it was easier to steal something without anyone noticing. 

He actually managed to get better clothes after around half a year, and get rid of the disgusting old rags he had worn before. The furs he had ripped off when spring came and the snow melted, which had resulted in huge gaps in his old tunic, and encrusted animal blood slowly crumbling away. During summer, he had stopped wearing his tunic entirely. He liked the weather well enough, and it felt better than the crusty blood, even though he now noticed eyes following him sometimes that made him feel as he didn’t wear anything at all, but he always managed to be away fast enough. 

Sometime during the next winter, he realised that by now he must be in his thirteenth year, and wondered how he’d forgotten his birthday during the whole of summer. 

None to his surprise, he forgot it again in the next year, but instead met an old man in one of the squares telling stories. Whenever he could, he would go to him and listen to the deeds of heroes long ago, and vow that one day he’d be like them, like half a hundred other kids did on the streets. Then, it would be easy to find his way home, were by now everyone must believe him dead. 

Sometimes he wondered if his parents would still recognise him. 

* * *

In the end, he left the city almost as sudden as he had arrived. 

Actually, he had neither planned nor even expected it. But long years on the streets had taught him how to see an opportunity, and how to grasp it and use it well. Except, of course, that normally meant apples lying around a market stand. 

This time, it was different. In fact, Sherun very nearly missed it, when he first saw Talea. She’d still been younger then, a bit more than twenty maybe. Afterwards, he’d never been sure what exactly it was that made him notice her. Her rather fierce beauty might have been a part of it, but then of course, he’d learned to stay away from girls with bows on their backs a long time ago in something of an unpleasant manner. 

Still, he followed her a bit, hoping she wouldn’t catch him spying on her. She didn’t. Instead, she lead him to her brother. He didn’t know that at the time, of course. All he saw was a man, a year or two older than her, with a rather impressive bow on his back. 

Spying on them, of course, would do him no good if he wanted them to help him. Yet another chance might never present itself, and both of them certainly _looked_ like they could be adventurers, and he managed to overhear enough to know when they’d be leaving while they talked to one of these richer man that normally had always meant trouble for him. 

That afternoon, he took all the money he had hidden on his secret spot next to the chimney, bought himself a new knife that could double as dagger, even if it was only a short one, and the next day he simply followed them when they left the city. 

For the first mile or so, nothing seemed amiss, and they didn’t notice him. He wondered what he’d do if they just ignored him. 

After the second mile, he thought they were aware of him, but probably supposed he was just another traveller. 

After the third mile, his legs hurt like hell. 

After the fourth he stopped counting. 

When night fell, he realized he had no idea what to do, and finally worked up the courage to speak to them. With a bit over three years of almost total silence, he discovered that just speaking could be surprisingly hard. 

In the end, it worked better than he had expected. He ended up with a bit to eat, a place at a warm, nice fire which was a blessing with winter starting to come again, and even a small blanket to wrap himself in during the night. 

The downside, of course, was that they considered him a dimwit. He’d never been one to speak much, of course, but now it was almost painful for him to try and remember how to put sentences together in a way that would at least halfway fit. 

Yet Sherun felt that was nothing of importance, for a few days later and miles away from Sunnagart, he had made his first two friends since he had left home, or perhaps the first two in his life. 

He didn’t really remember, and he slowly stopped thinking about it. 

All that mattered was that now he had two. Talea, the bright, beautifully wild girl he’d run across in the city, and Youen, her two-years-older brother, as trained with a bow as his little sister, if not more so. 

They were on their way to the dukedom of Rychenmâr, he soon learned, to the annual great tourney there, to enter the competition for best bowman. 

_I’ll see a tourney_ , he thought, _a real tourney!_

He wondered why he’d never seen one in Sunnagart, which was as large as it was brutal, and swordsman a dozen a penny. Well, a _golden_ penny, but still. 

And what was better, he was right. The tourney was an affair as great as it was magical, in these days before magic came to the world. It wasn’t in _Rychenm_ _âr proper_ , as Youen called it, but a few miles outside the city walls, on a low hill surrounded by wetlands. To his surprise he found the ground to be soaked through, not caring that it hadn’t rained for days, which, as he thought in hindsight, should have been obvious. It had just never occurred to him that there might be meadow that could permanently stay wet. 

He also hadn’t thought of the fact that he didn’t possess any proper shoes, but decided he would manage. It just felt strange, but he’d survived the winters in Sunnagart too, no matter how much mud and snow was on the street. 

While his new-found friends prepared to enter the competition (which he couldn’t enter, of course - he would be hopeless, although Talea _had_ shown him how to use a bow, he just wasn’t as good as them), Sherun wandered around and looked at every strange wonder he could find. He spent hours just staring at totally ordinary things, wondering why he’d never managed to come across them before. Why was everything so much _easier_ with these two archers? 

An old woman selling wool at the adjacent market told him all she knew of the area, how to tell the trees from each other, which mushrooms were save to eat in the forest, how Gerwulf had caught a wild bear there, coming back without a scratch, how sometimes people walked too deep into the wetlands, never to return again. 

That last one made him feel a bit queasy, but he supposed that was part of being an adventurer. 

He found an old storyteller sitting at a fire in the market’s center, and spent hours listening to his tales. He became so immersed in them that he almost missed to be back in time to watch his friends compete. 

Both of them were admirable, and both better than most others. Youen especially came close to winning, coming in second, with his sister only shortly behind, but enough for two others to be in between. 

As the sun began to set, there was a great feast for all the competitors and whoever they choose to bring with them. That night was the first time he tasted proper beer, as well as the best food he’d ever et his eyes upon. 

For all his dreams of an adventurous life, he now found he was just unprepared for how _thrilling_ it felt sometimes, even if he himself hadn’t even done anything special yet, had just been a bystander watching the others. He wondered how much better it could possibly be once he himself had learned how to use a bow properly. 

Of course, life wasn’t _always_ as exciting as this, and at times could be distressingly boring, after days on the road with no end in sight, travelling all over Âlendia, but Sherun found he didn’t particularly care. He could truly call himself an adventurer now, and he wouldn’t even lie. 

The thought made him smile. 

A year and a thousand travelled miles later, he had seen more fights than he could count, had even fought _himself_ more and more often - exactly twenty-three times, he’d counted, although he wasn’t sure if number fourteen had really been a _proper_ fight, for that one had been more running than fighting - had seen more of the land than he had dared to dream of as a boy, and his friendship with both Youen and Talea was closer than ever. A Bow he’d won in a bet had become his constant companion, and he was almost as good with it as Talea was, he’d met their friend Rohon, whom they’d dubbed the giant for his enormous height, had even acquired a basic idea of how to swing that sword that was now fastened on his waist. 

In short, everything was as well as he’d ever hoped it could be. 

Later, he thought that maybe he should have become suspicious, for life was never easy on him and had never been, but at the time he could not imagine anything happening that would undo his easy companionship with the two siblings. 

The end came on a day that should have been his greatest. His first battle, not in the front rows, just in the back with Youen and Talea and more other archers than he could count, far away from its clashing core, but just near enough to truly be a part of it. 

His aiming had become better than ever, even if still not as good as that of either of his friends, he’d made new ones in their army’s camp, had been under contract with a high lord. That alone had made him dizzy. The three of them - or rather, Youen, who was experienced with these things - had actually _haggled with a_ _high lord_ , and rather than mock them and send them away, he’d made both Youen and Talea commanders of a group of archers each, with him - for no one could deny that he still wasn’t quite as good as his friends - in Talea’s group. 

For three days, they had marched towards the enemy, and when they had made camp and the sun began to set, their outriders returned and reported on the size of their opponent’s host, and the commanders - even Talea, who was only one year older than twenty, the minimum for anyone to be even _allowed_ to be one - had spoken on how best to attack, who should be where, and whether to place the archers on the hill right to the field of battle or left, or both, who’d be commanding the vanguard and the flanks, whether or not they should try to break the enemy’s formation at the front or whether it would be better to surround him, and Sherun had been feeling that whatever may happen on the day after this one, it would be written down and remembered for a hundred generations, and maybe he’d even have the chance to be heroic and his own name would be mentioned in these accounts. 

He knew that he finally had the chance to make himself a name, and fell asleep to dream of minstrels who would, a thousand years from now, sing about his life, who’d still remember his name, the name of a boy from a little village with no great importance who’d changed the world. 

Afterwards, it had been truly obvious just how naïve he’d been that night, and still on the morrow, when the sun rose above him like a herald to announce him. 

In the end, it had only taken half a day to break him, when he could see the footsoldiers rout and scatter beneath the hill where Talea’s group had been placed. For half a second he thought that now was the time he’d become a hero, when he saw the enemy’s riders coming towards them. Then he realised that no matter how many arrows were set loose on them, the riders would not break the way their own men had done, and would not cease their speed. 

To his shame, he’d been the first one to run away, and to this day he was not sure if anyone had done the same, or if he was the only one who’d abandoned his post. Talea certainly did not run, he was sure of that, for he’d never met her again afterwards. He wondered whether she’d been taken captive or even killed, or if she’d be offered another contract by another lord. Maybe she’d been in their enemy’s service even as he’d found himself a hiding place, just a little hole in the ground of the forest near the battlefield, where he’d hid after his flight. 

For a day, he’d felt as if he was that small boy again, the one who’d run from home and lived in a forest, and who’d been forced into a life on the streets of Sunnagart when winter had come. Nothing much had changed, he realized: He still could not stay in the forest, and he had failed to make a name for himself in this battle, and he doubted that he’d ever get a second chance. Or, for that matter, whether he would be any better even if he got one. 

Alone in his little dark hole in the still-wet ground after heavy rain, on the next morning he found that the only thing that had enabled him to live outside of reeking Sunnagart had been his friends, and surely they would not want him back now: He’d run away in battle, had left his place in the formation, had maybe others inspired to do the same. No, they would not want him now; before, he’d been an adventurer-in-training, now, all he’d be would be a coward, and no use for brave archers like them. 

A day after that, and he wondered if he’d ever find the strength to leave his hole, no matter the mud that had started to cover him, and made him look even more like the filthy little urchin he’d been when he lived in a forest the last time. Still, he had not eaten since before the battle, and hunger got the better of him. 

So he started another live in the forest, and to his surprise found that it wasn’t much easier with a bow. His hunting had improved, of course, but so had his noise-making in all the time when he’d fancied himself a hero who wanted to _announce_ his presence, not hide it. 

There were a few things, though, that had changed since the last time. For one, he started wandering before winter had a chance to touch the soil, to see if there was any chance of a living somewhere else. That way, he found a river to bath and wash the mud of his clothes, and, to his dismay, found them to be the same he’d worn all the way back in Sunnagart, and to his even greater sorrow that he’d been an adventurer for not even half a year. 

Yet to his great surprise he found a village whose people were willing to feed him if he stayed as a guard. He didn’t tell them of the battle were he broke, of course, instead spinning tales of the twenty six fights he’d fought before, had changed little details to make himself look better. Most importantly, he left out that he’d never been alone. Should there ever really be a need of him to defend the town, he did not know what he would do. In the little room the village’s innkeeper had given him, he spent hours wondering whether he’d rather die or run away again, and then wondered some more about what would be worse. 

* * *

Life turned out to be surprisingly easy once you pretended to be a mighty warrior, he realized, and wondered whether or not he should feel guilty about that. Sherun though he probably should, and sometimes promised himself to do something about it, though he never specified what, and every time it was so much easier to just let it pass and continue living in this nice little village of a few peasants, a miller and a blacksmith that reminded him of the home he’d run away from. 

With time he himself seemed to become a part of the town, and he stayed there about as long as he’d been in Sunnagart. 

He hadn’t actually planned on ever going away. It just so happened that a bit over three years after he arrived, when spring began battling with winter and forced its way back into the world that a moon fell from the sky. 

_What a strange and wonderful sight it is_ , he’d thought before it fell, when the little light in the sky that many often mistook for a planet, a wandering star - he’d done the same, until Youen told him otherwise, and even than had kept his doubts - that was the smallest of the three moons on the nightly sky had started to move faster and faster, and grew so bright that at times you might spot it during the day. All doubt he’d still kept on Youen’s tale had vanished then, for it had begun to look more like the other moons, more like a rock than a star, even if a bit dented. He never had much to do, so he took his time to look at it every day, and with it came a strange fascination of it. 

When it finally fell, no one was really surprised. In fact, the villagers had gathered on the top of the inn, the highest house they had, as to better see it as it during its fall, when it started glowing, first in orange, then in white, and lastly it seemed to Sherun as if it started shining in colours he had never seen before, had never even knew that they existed. 

No, the surprise had been what happened next. Not the incredibly tall and menacing flame that shot from the earth in the distance, countless miles away from the rooftop they stood upon. 

The first thing Sherun had found remarkable was the complete and utter lack of sound as the explosion occurred. The villagers noted it too, of course, and for a few hours everything was covered in an eerie silence, for no one dared to raise his voice in the light of the flame on the horizon. 

But only for a few hours. Then the next remarkable thing had come, namely the missing sound. Without any warning, the village and the forest suddenly found themselves covered with the most powerful thunder anyone had ever heard, a noise that drowned whatever the villagers and Sherun tried to say, an uproar so loud that it could drive people mad. 

And just as these to events had come after each other, so came the third and most important after both of them, hours later, in the middle of the night, creeping and crawling in every corner of every room, in every cabinet, in every stable, coming like a thief, so silent no one but Sherun, who had stayed awake that night to watch the slowly dying flames on the horizon, noticed it till morning, when it showed itself as lights dancing in the air, as an eerie shimmering on the trees, as a slight glowing on the grass, a bit like dew and yet so different that no one could be fooled into thinking that it had rained at night. 

When they asked Sherun what had happened in the dead of the night, he would not tell them what he had witnessed, and in fact he had sworn himself that he would never speak about it almost as soon as it started, for surely they would think him mad should he tell them the blasphemous things he’d seen looming above the world. 

The villagers could only guess that it had to be something important, since not a day afterwards, their trusted guard announced his wish to leave them and see for himself what had happened beyond the horizon, where the flames and their smoke still shone brightly in all colours against the backdrop of the slowly awakening sky. 

One or two adventurous boys stated that they would like to accompany him, yet they experienced a harsh refusal from both their mothers and the man in question himself, who felt the desire to be alone when he arrived at the place of the falling. 

Sherun remembered that Youen had once told him that a man might cross Âlendia in less than half a year on foot if in a hurry, so he had no fear of the winter, as he’d had in previous times when he’d been alone in the wild, and indeed he hoped that nothing would matter after he reached his goal. 

A journey across half the world would be no easy feat, of that much Sherun had been aware, and also of his speed while walking as well as his sufficient skill to hunt, which he had increased in the forest during his years at the village in secret, for poaching was frowned upon, and yet he spent almost twice as much time on the road than he had planned, first because of a raging war not too far away from his village - for that had it become over the passing time there, at least in his mind, which slowly let go of the memory to another village, and another home - then he had been stopped by a range of mountains that he had never heard about before in his life, and lastly by his goal itself. 

On his journey there he noticed the lights again, similar to the ones he’d seen at the village, that would dance sometimes on open fields at night, and more and more he had met men and women claiming to know that it was magic, _real_ magic, not like in the stories daft old women would tell their grandchildren, just like his own grandmother had done years before, and sometimes they even seemed to be able to control it a bit, were able to let a few sparks flow from their hands. One young boy he met could even move some things without touching them, and throughout it Sherun felt a kind of _presence_ in his mind, especially with a girl he’d met on the road, who had a hand imprinted with eerie glowing lines after an accident. 

As he came closer to the place were he thought the moon must have fallen, and were men said that the world had burned and died, the place which the gods themselves had abandoned when the rock had hit it things started to chance in a way that was familiar to him, yet he had not expected. 

It started one night in the common room of an inn where he stayed - for he had saved the money he had made in the village over the years, as he’d found himself to have little need of it - and met a peasant of the more unpleasant sort, maybe even a bandit, though of course he would not admit such a thing, who, when told of Sherun’s intention, started advising him against it, telling a tale of a cursed land full of glowing things at night and hideous sights even in broad daylight. 

The trees were starting to become fatter, he claimed, and the livestock would go mad every time you tried to chase it in any direction other than away from the accursed place which the moon had left full of the terrors of the outer world, in fact would try to run away, and he claimed to have lost many a sheep to the creeping horrors that he was able to feel at night, finding them to be gone when the sun rose. 

What Sherun at first took as the exaggerations and superstitions of the poor scared man he soon found to be an account almost frighteningly close to reality, and while he had seen and lived through many things, even he felt himself becoming unsettled by it more than he had ever been before. Yet after the disasters that should have been his adventures in the past, he was determined not to turn back and flee. 

He found himself reminded of the presence he had felt before, yet nothing he had experienced before could compare to the pressing force that now lasted on his mind. 

The forests were unnaturally dark, and Sherun had not been able to find a cause for them blocking all the light, as neither the leaves nor fog or mist was sufficient to hide the sun, and instead he found it looked a bit as if the air itself was drowning out the sun, or as if the sun refused to send light to these trees. 

As he continued on his way, he found them florescent at night, at first barely noticeable, yet soon glowing bright enough in strange colours he had only ever seen once before, that night when he watched the dancing fires in the distance from the inn’s rooftop. And indeed, as the old man had told him at the inn, the plants had grown larger, not as they might in an ancient forest, but in a more unnatural way, looking more sick than healthy. 

Soon the villages and towns he found were empty save for a few men and women who either hid as soon as he set eyes upon them, or who told them mad stories if anything at all, and to his horror Sherun found that none of them seemed to be aware that they were in a conversation, or even that he was there, for their eyes never met his nor did they direct them on his body; they all seemed to be looking somewhere else, though they never said where, and Sherun was unable to tell. 

The closer he came, the more noticeable did the curse the moon had brought with it from the sky become, the larger the trees grew, the brighter they shone at night and the darker the sun was during the day, until at last they looked as if they must burst soon, and the fruits were round and fat, and run through with faint lines of blue and red, and other colours Sherun could not name. He never dared to eat these foul-looking fruits, which smelled more and more of corruption the closer he came his goal he thought the source of this curse that slowly developed into doom. 

The last mile in these accursed woods were filled with terrors Sherun did not dare to name, and odours so foul they could not be compared to anything known to man, yet when he finally reached its end he could not say he felt relieve. 

Still, when he first set eyes on these new mountains at the far side of the terrible plain in front of him, and the familiar lights dancing beyond, for the first time in years, he felt _right_. 

_This is what I was meant to be_ , he thought, _no matter what everyone else_ _said._

He had left his village so long ago to find an adventure, and now finally he had found it in the eerie lights dancing beyond the mountains at the end of the plain. All he had to do now was to reach them, and thereby fulfil his oldest wish, as to finally be free of it. 

Yet first he had to cross the plane and the mountains beyond, and the terrors that it held. He could see the little lights dancing, just the way they had done it on that fateful night when the moon had fallen, now almost a year ago. When he had started, he feared that he might not make it here before winter fell, but as he had slowly come into its reach, he found that he had no need to worry, as on this plane summer and winter seemed as far away as the stars seemed so near that Sherun felt that he would be able to touch them if he only struck his hand out. 

On his way trough the dead desert, he found evidence of past settlement and life: A few strangely threatening looking stumps, though whether the trees had been burned or felled by men, or if they had burst, as those behind him might do soon, he could not say. 

After almost a day of marching through the barren, yet eerily beautiful wasteland filled with lights of more colours than he could imagine Sherun came across what must have been a farmstead once, yet now was not even a ruin, for not only were the walls not merely burned, but rather missing completely, as if they had vanished just to spite nature, or maybe they had gone of their own when they found their surroundings unnaturally, with a glooming evil not far from them. 

Either way, Sherun decided to use them as a place to sleep through the night, the last before he would reach the mountains that were already looking heavily over him, full of things glowing in unnatural ways, releasing a constant stream of sparks into the air. 

His sleep was not peaceful, for the spark’s glooming illuminated the dead soil more than the sun had during the day, while in the distance Sherun could see the abnormal forest glowing into the night, while his search for both moons still in the sky ended without spotting either of the two. 

When the morrow came he felt rested nonetheless, as he had come to expect during his stay in the forest: Even without much resting or even food (he had not felt hunger since entering the woods), it seemed that the power of the air kept him awake, and maybe that was another cause of his troubled sleep. 

He reached the mountains before the sun had reached its zenith, and found them surprisingly easy to climb, even while he was repulsed and deeply frightened by the horrors all around him, were what had seemed like thin lines the night before now revealed itself to be thicker than his waist, and not only was it sticky and soft to his touch, but it also arched towards him, whether he was near to it or not, and on the more distant slopes it seemed as if it actually _crawled_ over the soil like some giant worm or snake, moving in unnatural ways like the tentacles of weird fish he had once seen caught by fishers in Sunnagart. 

Climbing these mountains of madness was the most disgusting thing he had ever done, and yet he knew he had to do it, for his goal was just beyond. 

_I will not fail_ , he told himself, _I’ve tried so often only to fail. I will not fail this_ _time._

As he came closer to the top, where the slopes weren’t as steep as below, where the rim of this range of mountains was close enough to touch and Sherun realized that he was almost at his goal, he allowed himself one last moment to catch his breath before looking beyond, to were the source of magic must be, the source of the terrible power that surrounded the place of the falling, the place were the flames had danced more than half a year ago, when he’d seen them from so far away. 

_I must not fail._

Behind this last few feet, there was the source of a power that he knew to be almost infinite, and with it, he could do whatever he had ever wished to do. Maybe he’d even find Youen and Talea again, and maybe they would forgive him for running when he told them where he’d been. Or maybe he could go back to that village, and then protect them in truth, as the most powerful sorcerer there would ever be. Or maybe he’d just go home, and hope his parents would welcome him back. 

_I must not fail._

Sherun lifted his head, and saw what was beyond. 

He could see the other side of the mountain range, and saw that it formed something of an abnormally large circle. Yet were there should have been a valley inside it, the inner slopes of the mountains were full of these eldritch lines, these eerie _worms_ , pulsing and glowing in the same strange colours as the dancing lights, much larger than on the other side and in a terrible sense _alive_ , as if to make the hole mountain seem one blasphemous creature, one great abomination strait from the most torturous hell imaginable that filled the world with the foulest odour he had ever smelled. 

Yet that was not all. 

For where the valley’s bottom should have been, there was only a pool of brightly-glowing liquid a bit like the molten steal in a smithy, jet also bubbling and swashing and _moving_ in a way no ordinary liquid ever could, and while it might seem a bright red at first, Sherun could see blue and white in places, and other parts that shone similar to the lines on the scarred girl’s hand, on the fruits in the forest, on the slopes of the mountains and the blasphemous valley beyond, where the seemed to creep or crawl or _grow_ out of the pit of eldritch liquid beneath the ghastly grey sky that showed neither sun nor moon. 

Yet still, that was not all, for in the distance something loomed into the sky, glowing and pulsating and _changing its shape_ in equal manner, from a mess of giant blood-dripping arms to wings towering even above the enclosing mountains, to a wobbling, glowing thing that no human words were meant to describe. 

For just a moment longer the boy Sherun stared at it. 

_Oh_ , he thought. 

And then he screamed.


End file.
